The prophet Ezekiel prophesied that in the end of days, Jerusalem would be an international point of contention, and as President Barack Obama mulls a possibly devastating blow to Israel during his last weeks in the White House, that prophecy seems closer to fruition than ever.

An international anti-Jerusalem scenario which sees President Obama using his final days in office to damage Israel via the UN, perhaps by allowing a resolution creating a Palestinian state to pass the Security Council without a US veto, is familiar to those who have read the prophet Zechariah.

And it shall come to pass in that day that I will make Yerushalayim a stone of burden for all the peoples; all that burden themselves with it shall be sore wounded; and all the nations of the earth shall be gathered together against it. Zechariah 12:3

The connection was made by David Mark, chief editor of Israel Rising and political activist for Jewish indigenous rights in Israel, in a political commentary on his website Sunday.

“There is a clear trajectory to create a situation where just by an American abstention, a de-facto Palestinian State will be created,” he warned.

Should that happen, “This state will forcibly divide Jerusalem, ripping out the Jewish Nation’s capital from within it and handing most of the holy sites to a made-up people that never existed.”

“I read prophecy as a filter for political commentary,” Mark explained in an interview with Breaking Israel News. “This prophecy describes Jerusalem as being a trigger for the war that comes later. The international element of the prophecy doesn’t mean the world leaders will come to Jerusalem [but that they will ‘gather’ against it]. The UN clearly seems to be indicated here, and the stage is being set for this to happen.”

Rabbi Pinchas Winston, a noted Torah expert on the end of days, told Breaking Israel News that the international conflict surrounding Jerusalem as described in Zechariah is a necessary element of the Messianic process. Rabbi Winston cited Leviticus Rabbah, a homiletic commentary on the Book of Leviticus, which states, “Three times in the future Gog and Magog will war with Israel and go up against Jerusalem. They will assemble and anger the nations to go up to Jerusalem.”

“This focus on Jerusalem is uncanny,” said Rabbi Winston. “The Arabs shouldn’t care about Jerusalem since they have Mecca. America’s policy is also strange. They could put the embassy in uncontested West Jerusalem, and that would please Israel without threatening the Palestinians.”

But one of the Palestinian preconditions to peace negotiations has always been the creation of a Palestinian state based on pre-Six Day War borders, which would include East Jerusalem, though Palestinians claim “every centimeter of Jerusalem” as a solely Arab and Muslim domain.

For Rabbi Winston, this bizarre activity surrounding Jerusalem reinforces his belief that this is a prelude to the Messiah.

“This is clearly Divine intervention,” the rabbi stated. “This is all for the believers. People are not acting logically. God is pushing things to make a person go to either the right or the left because the end is coming.”

While reports emerged last week that Obama had “nearly ruled out” any last-minute efforts to hurt Israel at the UN, US Secretary of State John Kerry refused to confirm that no such plans were in place. On Sunday at the Saban Forum in Washington, Kerry said that the US would only veto a UN resolution intended to establish a Palestinian state if it was “a biased, unfair resolution calculated to delegitimize Israel”, leaving the threat open.

Though Jerusalem is becoming a flashpoint for international conflict, fulfilling its prophetic status as “a cup of staggering for all nations,” pointed out Rabbi Hillel Weiss, spokesman for the nascent Sanhedrin, “The main aspect of the prophecy is the peace that ensues, and not the conflict, which is merely a prelude.”

He concluded that the fulfillment of the prophecy will end in the ultimate peace.

“The prophecies describe a spirit of purity that will wash over the world, which will enable the return of the Kingdom of the House of David to Israel, may it live forever.”